Description
Book SynopsisDostoevsky attached introductions to his most challenging narratives, including
Notes from the House of the Dead,
Notes from Underground,
The Devils,
The Brothers Karamazov, and “A Gentle Creature.” Despite his clever attempts to call his readers’ attention to these introductions, they have been neglected as an object of study for over 150 years. That oversight is rectified in
First Words, the first systematic study of Dostoevsky’s introductions. Using Genette’s typology of prefaces and Bakhtin’s notion of multiple voices, Lewis Bagby reveals just how important Dostoevsky’s first words are to his fiction. Dostoevsky’s ruses, verbal winks, and backward glances indicate a lively and imaginative author at earnest play in the field of literary discourse.
Trade ReviewA uniquely refreshing study of Dostoevsky's complex and little understood introductions, Lewis Bagby’s
First Words: On Dostoevsky's Introductions, is a groundbreaking new work. Through a close reading and utilizing Genette's typology, Bagby provides insights into narratology and authorial voice and discovers that Dostoevsky's fictional introductory commentaries create frames essential in understanding the multifacetedness of his novelistic characters and plots. A required reading for literary scholars which can be of a significant interest to all readers of Dostoevsky's fiction. -- Gene Fitzgerald, Emeritus Professor of Russian, University of Utah
"Drawing attention to a surprisingly neglected aspect of Dostoevsky’s works, Lewis Bagby deftly reveals how Dostoevsky used introductions—or prologues or forewords or prefaces—to subtly indicate themes and structures of many of his most important writings, such as
Notes from the Underground and
The Brothers Karamazov. Taking that cue, Bagby offers rich and newly insightful interpretations of Dostoevsky’s works large and small, alerting readers how to read them from Dostoevsky’s point of view. Bagby’s reading of the introduction to “A Gentle Creature” is nothing short of a revelation. The book will likely surprise, and will indeed enlighten, many a reader." -- Elizabeth Cheresh Allen, Bryn Mawr College
Table of Contents
- Note on Transliteration
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Model Prefaces from Russian Literature
- Chapter 2: Dostoevsky’s Initial Post-Siberian Work
- Chapter 3: Playing with Authorial Identities
- Chapter 4: Monsters Roam the Text
- Chapter 5: Re-Contextualizing Introductions
- Chapter 6: Anxious to the End
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
